Originally Posted by NarayananNalinakshan

Dear Planners,

I have recently came across a discussion on provision of Surge bins in ship loading circuit.

I have been associated with loading system with surge bins and with out surge bins.

With my long experience,I am of the opinion that the surge bins have more disadvantages than advantages.

Considering disadvantage I had to arrange system to by pass surge bin, which again added to the cost.

Advantages,

1.During short hatch change the reclaimer need not be stopped and the.material can be stored in the bin and resume loading immediately.

2.Controlled flow and fine tuning towards final top up.

Disadvantages,

1.High initial cost.

2.High maintenance cost,

3.High power cost due to the lift of the material to the top of surge bins.

Surge bin was considered in olden days when the measuring devices could not work accurately in inclination and continuously varying load/speed.

Now accurate belt measuring devices with o.25% accuracy is available which can give accurate reading with varying inputs.

Overall cost benefit does not go in favour of surge bins.

I request views from experts.

Rgds,

Narayanan Nalinakshan

Adding a surge pile or bin is counter productive in some ways especially

in ship loading as the material is rehandled several times and the only

thing that is gained is expense as the added cost of a surge bin also

adds to maintenance already in progress to maintain the entire system.

You want to make it as simple and productive as possible as the simplicity

of an operating system adds to the value and speeds up repairs being

just plain simple with gravity as your friend whenever possible.

A surge bin allows you to store a vast amount of material but the surge

bin can also be source of problems if chutes are plugged and a drive motor

for its conveyor(s) burns out.

The simpler the better by loading a single feeder belt and then the ship loader makes only two

points of possible bottle necks with regard to break downs.

The iron ore docks on the Great Lakes Region in the United States are a

prime example of simplicity as gravity is used to fill them AND empty them

and the dump gates hold enough material to fill one hatch and the

"laker" Ore Boat is filled and can be undocked and allowed to depart with

the permission of the harbor master and the harbor pilot when it is released

from the dock and allowed to leave for open water. ■

A couple of years ago I stuck a bin on the end of a wharf conveyor to accommodate surge between rail delivery and shiploader performance fluctuation.

Product was railed from the refinery 24km inland and empty rolling stock was returned. A shunter handled the business from there on. A buffer of only 1500tonnes was required and the port storage which would have been necessary with overland conveying was eliminated. A refinery buffer store was essential and the train avoided duplication of the storage. No fire protection pipes across the desert etc etc.

More and more fancy academic long distance conveyors are compromising plant development with the high CAPEX. ■